A rescue is underway for eight people – including six schoolchildren – trapped in a cable car dangling 900ft (274 metres) over a ravine in Pakistan.
Six children and two teachers are trapped in the chair lift after a cable snapped, with a tricky helicopter rescue mission being hampered by high winds, rescue officials said,
The children, who have been stranded since 7am local time were using the chair lift to get to school in a mountainous area in Battagram, about 125 miles (200km) north of Islamabad, officials said. People who live in the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan often use chair lifts for transport from one village to another. It is believed that dozens take the chair lift daily, thanks to a lack of transport options in the area.
“For God’s sake help us,” Gulfraz, a man stuck in the cable car, told Pakistan television channel Geo News by phone. He confirmed eight people were on board.
“The cable car is stuck in a place where it is almost impossible to help without a helicopter,” Zulfiqar Khan, an official with Pakistan’s 1122 rescue service, told AFP.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said in a statement that a cable had broken in the lift service and an army helicopter had been dispatched for a rescue operation after attempts at fixing the fault had been unsuccessful.
The open chair lift became stranded half way across a ravine and was hanging by a single cable after the other snapped, Shariq Riaz Khattak a rescue official at the site told Reuters. The rescue mission is complicated due to gusty winds in the area and the fact the helicopter’s rotor blades risk further destabilising the lift, he said.
One helicopter has already conducted surveillance and then returned, and another one would be sent shortly, the rescue official said.
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar expressed concern in a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I have also directed the authorities to conduct safety inspections of all such private chair lifts and ensure that they are safe to operate and use,” he said in a post.
Reuters contributed to this report